The Tin Drum

The Tin Drum is set in Danzig, largely during the years when the Nazi Party was rising to power. Oskar Matzerath, born in 1924, is a precocious child who is disgusted by the world of adults and, on his third birthday, decides to stop growing. He receives a tin drum that day and keeps it with him from then on, using it and a piercing scream that shatters glass to protest what happens around him. The film follows him and his family through the Second World War and its aftermath.

Volker Schlöndorff directed the film, working from a screenplay he wrote with Jean-Claude Carrière and Franz Seitz Junior. It was adapted from Günter Grass's novel and came after Schlöndorff's Degree of Murder, being the second of the seven films listed in his filmography. David Bennent plays Oskar, with Mario Adorf and Angela Winkler as his parents, Katharina Thalbach as Maria, Daniel Olbrychski as Jan Bronski and Tina Engel as Anna Koljaiczek. The production was a German, Polish, French and Yugoslav co-production made for about 3 million dollars, and it runs 162 minutes.

Released in 1979, the film has an IMDb rating of 7.4 from around 28,000 votes and a TMDB rating of 7 from roughly 560 votes, while critics gave it 7.5 from 25 reviews. Its place among the director's earlier features and its international production reflect a period when Schlöndorff was building a reputation beyond Germany.